CULTIVATING SUSTAINABILITY MINDSETS IN MECHANICAL ENGINEERING EDUCATION THROUGH DESIGN-IMPLEMENT EXPERIENCES

This paper presents a comprehensive framework for cultivating sustainability mindsets within mechanical engineering education at Singapore Polytechnic through the integration of the CDIO (Conceive-Design-Implement-Operate) approach. Recognizing the urgent need for engineers to move beyond technical proficiency toward sustainable innovation, the initiative addresses the recurring challenge of limited value internalization, where students understand sustainability concepts but fail to act upon them. The proposed strategy employs the CDIO design-implement experiences structured around three vertical “pillar” courses – Introduction to Engineering (Year 1), Design & Implement (Year 2), and Capstone Projects (Year 3) – to progressively embed sustainability principles across the curriculum. These experiences are aligned with selected UN Sustainable Development Goals and guided by Isabel Rimanoczy’s Sustainability Mindset Principles (SMPs), which emphasize cognitive, behavioral, and affective dimensions. Complementing these principles, the framework prioritizes two dominant Key Competencies for Sustainability (KCS) – Integrated Problem-Solving and Systems Thinking – while weaving in transversal competencies. Implementation plans for Year 1, and Year 2 illustrate how sustainability can be infused into cornerstone and intermediate projects through activities such as carbon footprint analysis, closed-loop system design, and reflective strategy proposals. The double-helix curriculum model highlights the interplay between SMPs, KCS, and SDGs, ensuring that sustainability is not treated as an elective theme but as a core pedagogical spine. By embedding sustainability into authentic design-implement experiences, the framework aims to transform student attitudes, foster ecological accountability, and prepare graduates to design resilient, circular, and socially responsible systems. Future directions include longitudinal studies to evaluate the impact of this model on students’ professional identity formation and their ability to internalize sustainability values at both awareness and practice levels.